Welcome to UNITY the rock club in the heart of Peterborough. Bringing you the best of new talent and live entertainment every week. Meeting every Thursday night at Goodbarns Yard, 64 St Johns Street, Peterborough.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Monday, March 26, 2007

Here we go here's some pics from the muddy equinox party. Point of Origin, Opaque, Corneilius (bless him), James Chadwick, Alison Small, Keltix and a few faces you'll recognise.Our guest photographer this week is the one and only Dayglow Joe who captured all these images on the montage below.The Muddy equinox party. What can we say? It was a triumph. Brilliant music lovely people and a great time was had by all. So you don't have to wait a moment longer here's the pics of you. Muddy Promotions love you, Unity Loves you, you love you. Richard came back all the way from Spain because he loves you. Shaggy loves you. Moony is overwhelmed by your love. Corneilius loves you all. It's all love love love. Here you are...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Columbian Necktie as you've never seen them, acoustically, not that is unless you've been in their front room on a bender.Actually it was pretty good, the usual unusual that you'd expect from the guys.End of the Day continue to entertain. In a Forest in a wood being one of my favourites, not least because Danny goes crazy, except he didn't this time.MrZed who supplied the visual backdrop controlled by a PC in the sound booth,which incidently also inspired these photos. We went for a more surreal psychodelic look in the pics this week. Why? Because we can. It's done by using a slow shutter speed to capture the ambient light and a flash to capture the action. A little bit blurry in parts but that's the trade off. Of course no night would be complete without our audience. A more lovely bunch of people you couldn't hope to meet.

Oh this Thursday we've got something different. Unity is hosting Gizz Butts Rock Academy. It's the first gig for all of the four bands on stage, but they've all been personally trained and guided in all aspects of rock music by the world famous Gizz Butt (ex Prodigy). It's £4 to get in but it promises to be a very interesting night. If you come after 11:00pm it's free. But then you'll miss the bands.

It's great to see Richard back from his sojourn in Spain. He's back on the Unity team with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. Watch out very soon for pics from The Muddy Equinox party. It was great.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

It's that time of year again - the spring equinox is upon us and that means its time to party - celebrating the oncoming summer and all the extra partying it will bring! The Grassroots Equinox Party is taking place at Spirit & Soul (formerly Lisboa), 24 Lincoln Road, Peterborough this Saturday from 4pm till 4am and promises to be a really special event. See below for more details.

But that's not the only thing on the agenda for the week and weekend:

Wednesday

The Glass Onion will have Arry in session with his weekly DJ workshop for you to learn and hone your skills on the wheels of steel. The workshop will run from 6pm till 8pm and is free.

At 8pm the Bar area at the Onion will become a meeting space for discussion and planning of the City Roots Festival - which Muddy are working on in conjunction with Peterborough City Council and which will take place on the Embankment on 4&5 August this year. This meeting is open to anybody who wants to get involved on any level or who is just interested in hearing what is going on.

Thursday

Thursday nights are Unity nights at Spirit & Soul, and after the success of the relaunch party the team are proud to have another kick ass line-up of music.

Mr Zed are Cambridge based psychedelic phreaks with a 6 piece band playing intensely original music taking in elements of drum & bass, Pink Floydesque psychedelia and dubedelic skank.

End of the Day have made quite an impression on the local scene in their short time on it. Their synthed up rock has been compared to Sonic Youth and they are always a treat.

Columbian Necktie are playing in acoustic guise (something you don't see every day). We're as fascinated as anybody to see how their comedic rock insanity translates into the new format.

Ghost is a breakcore/experimental producer from Cambridge record label/party crew Life 4 Land. He will be playing a DJ set of his own tunes from his laptop.

DJ Urb needs no real introduction. This time around he will be playing drum & bass.

Entrance is FREE before 9pm, and is only £3/£2 muddy members afterwards.

Doors open at 8pm and will close when we've had enough. :)

Alternatively round the corner at The Park you'll find local rock wonders Acer, Point Seven Pistol and Wake playing from 7pm. There is a headline act on the bill too but I don't remember their name right now.....oops..... Tickets are £5.

And at the Glass Onion it's games night from 4pm till 12 midnight - with games consoles on the big screen, free pool, chess etc etc. Entrance is free.

Friday

There are two wonderful acoustic shows on this Friday - the city is being spoilt this week!

The Glass Onion is hosting it's open mic session from 8pm, with special guests this week Andy Whittle and 3DM. Earlier in the night there's also the weekly drum workshop with Dutch Tony, this is also free to take part in, is open to all and takes place from 5 till 6. This Friday also marks the start of a public disply at the Onion relating to the anniversary of the abolition of slavery.

Meanwhile in other haunts you'll find Abi's acoustic session at the Brewery Tap from 9pm till late with performers Fre3 Peace (Abi, Stacey and Kez from Point of Origin unfame), Jennifer James and John Litchfield. Entrance is free here too.

Saturday

Well it's time for that Equinox Party again!

The venue is Spirit & Soul, 24 Lincoln Road, Peterborough. Doors open at 4pm and the first band is local faves Point of Origin who will play at 4:15 pm so get there early. Entrance is a mere £3 if you get there in time for POO, afterwards is £6/£5 Muddy members.

Gideon Connwww.myspace.com/gideonconn"Think Beck at a jamming session with The Shortwave set. Gideon's lyrics, often rapped, tell of heart-warming and humorous tales and produce laughs without fail. His band variates in size and instruments, sometimes including violin, jew harp and trombone." - www.last.fm

Joe Driscollwww.myspace.com/joedriscoll"A sonic wonderkid who creates his 21st century 'folk' live onstage, sample by sample, beat by beat... one to watch." - Time Out

James Chadwick www.jameschadwick.co.uk....and another one who should really need no intro. If you don't know him where have you been?!Corneilius www.corneilius.net"the aim in all good conversation, in communication with heart, is that there can neither be victor nor vanquished, only well informed, enlightened and reassured people."

Sarah Bearwww.myspace.com/sarahbearsoundsConscious acoustic music from Sarah, who works closely with groups such as Sunday Sounds, Peace Not War and Rhythms of Resistance.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Well we've run a very successful Band of 2007 competition. A huge thank you to all the bands that took part it was a lot of fun for everyone. Special congratulations to The Brackets, Revenue and Free Will and The band Influences for getting to the final. But now we're back with a bang and a glimpse of how we mean to go on. Our first artist Graham Edwards you may remember him from such bands as Opaque etc anyway here he was doing a solo spot with his own original songs, very nice too. A band that don't need much introduction if you're familiar with the Peterborough music scene, the grooviest band in town the guys who put the funk in funkaliscious - Groove cartel.Our special guests tonight all the way from London the amazing Lazy Habits who really know how to have a good time and entertain. Their man Beatbox (bottom left) what? We had to check to see if anyone else was playing, he did the drums, vocals and horn section all in the one microphone amazing.and of course there's all you guys. Yeah you knew we wouldn't forget you and your own private little quests for fame, so here you all are having a great time.Ooooh news hot off the press, our man Richard is back on Wednesday, so he'll be back on the Unity team, with his usual enthusiasm. I guess he got fed up with riding camels. But the main thing is he's gonna be back in time for next Thursdays show which will feature Mr Zed (they usual have an audio visual show as well), Columbian Necktie and End of the Day. Not only that the show will feature you guys as well as our audience, because without you what's the point? So we'd love you to turn up. We want you to have fun and we want you to hear some incredible music from some very talented musicians. in the meantime er..... rock on dudes

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

It's been a long-time since this mailout hit your inboxes, apologies for the suspension of the service.....we are now back online and you will receive your weekly dose of info once again.

A little bit of catching up to do as well I guess so it's update time.

The Glass Onion is still open and just about keeping head above water. The volunteer crew is strong though still quite small and any time you can give to the project to help out on the bar or with anything else is gratefully received.....this is the only way for the project to work.

The face of Peterborough's nightlife has changed considerably in the last year and a half, with many venues changing hands and policies - we like to think that we have had a hand in the positive changes we have seen in the boro, and are chuffed to find that on our travels people are beginning to recognise Peterborough as somewhere populated with friendly and creative folk and interesting parties.

The summer is nearly hear too - I can smell the spring creeping into the Earth as life slowly spreads through the soil again and the sun slowly gets stronger. The Grassroots Spring Equinox party on Saturday 24th March will be our celebration of this - building up to a busy summer that will leave many smiles on many faces and bring us all new friends, experiences, knowledge and memories.

The sad news is that the Grassroots Festival will not be taking place in 2007. We have had many months of frantically trying to find a site since the sad news reached us that last year's site would not be available this time around. Having chased many many leads and scratched our collective heads plentifully we have had to come to the conclusion that we will not be able to make the festival this year without putting ourselves in great financial risk and compromising the nature of the event itself to its detriment. Work is already afoot on plans for the festival to return in 2008 - we still don't have a finalised site for it so anyone who knows of any prospective sites please let us know about them. We need to have space for party, camping and cars for up to 1500 people and would like to be as isolated as possible.

All things happen for a reason though and with all of the projects currently bubbling maybe it is for the best that we have a break from Grassroots this season. What we do have to look forward to is great:

1. Muddy Promotions are working with Peterborough City Council to run a two-day festival on the embankment in the centre of Peterborough. This won't be quite Grassroots but will be a party that will reach a much wider audience and hopefully cause much positivity in our locale. There will be a great diversity of music on offer and we hope that there will be much smiles, laughter and happiness caused. The event will take place on August 4 & 5. More updates to follow.

2. Newfoundland Festival is growing into a fully licenced event for the first time this summer - and the Indigo Children and Newfoundland people have kindly invited the Muddy collective (strongly headed by the Playskool bods for this one) to run one of the two arenas. We will be taking live music, DJ's, visuals and the arts to the event, and there will also be psychedelic music, spoken word poetry, literature and much more courtesy of the Newfoundland organisers. Links are being grown to Welsh arts group CADRA in order to maximise involvement of the local populous to make a truly multi-dimensional art and party experience in the beautiful Welsh countryside. The Newfoundland Festival will take place on September 7 - 9 and will be an intimate event for less than 500 people, with tickets for very cheap prices and a strong community focus (resonances of Grassroots anyone?). For welcome involvement please email andrewgates23@yahoo.co.uk with Newfoundland as the subject. Much more info to come and tickets will be on sale shortly.

3. We have also had the pleasure to be invited to take our dome, interactive arts experience and some of our DJ's to take part in the Secret Garden Party - one of the finest events in the UK. It will take place in countryside near Huntingdon on 27-29 July. We are only able to take a small crew with us but would love for the Muddy community to be there for a great party. I believe tickets are already on sale. I'll update you as to where soon.

4. The Grassroots name is not on hold just because the festival is, the indoor festivals for the Equinoxes are Solstices will still be rocking and keeping the spirit alive! The next Equinox party will be taking place at the newly renamed and refitted Lisboa Bar - now known as Spirit and Soul - on the 24th March. Keep your eyes peeled for the flyer and for further info. The line-up is superb and the party should be rocking so help keep the fome fires burning at this very special day and night event.

5. The Glass Onion is open full time with many interesting events. I think it's safe to say that the Friday night acoustic sessions and open mic has established itself as the best event of its kind in the local area, and we've also had the privilege of hosting performing artists from the worlds of theatre, cabaret and the full world the arts. Keep check at the Onion for the regularly updated program and on the forum at www.muddypromotions.org.uk/forum

6. Our affiliate and constituent groups have continued to do sterling work for the party and music scene in the boro.

The Playskool Sound Collective continue to bring multi-genre underground parties to the boro and some of the crew have also established Psychedelic Breakdown as the first purely psychedelic music focused event to take place in the boro ever - having hosted artists, DJ's and decorators from all over the country.

Unity are still running every Thursday at Spirit and Soul. Since the start of this year they were running the Unity Band of 2007 competition which has boosted the local live music scene and has now come to its completion (big congratulations to The Brackets - who won the crown). Unity are now relaunching their event and have some amazing line-ups of local musicians as well as some of the best artists from around the country.

Contact continue to experiment with music, visuals and art. They returned to the city with a fantastic line-up after a short break just last week and the event looked and felt better than ever.

System Abuse are still keeping the underground drum & bass parties rolling and have plans to kick some serious fire into their events in the near future.

A new promotion for reggae and roots styles (from dub, ska, and dancehall to rootsy reggae grooves) is being born shortly. Vital Rhythms are chuffed to have the wonderful Vibronics on board for their launch party - taking place on 13th April. They hope to put some much needed skank into the step of people in Peterborough and will also be bringing their party to the Glass Onion for an event in early May.

7. The recording studio at the Glass Onion is now functioning and Drip-Dry records, our in-house record label, have already had the privilege of recording and releasing Richard Hall's beautiful debut EP. He's now in Spain taking his songs far and wide for a while but the Drip-Dry work contines with Circus recording and many more in the pipeline. FOr more info or involvement pop into the Onion and have a chat with Benny.

Enough of the update and on to the immediate business in hand - what's on this week to take your fancy:

Wednesday

The Glass Onion is open for normal business with DJ workshops courtesy of Arry running from 7pm. If you would like to learn the art of DJ'ing, or perfect your skills pop down - it's free after all!

Thursday

Tonight is the Unity relaunch party - with a fantastic line-up of the finest in live music and DJ's:

The venue is Spirit & Soul, 24 Lincoln Road, Peterborough. Doors open at 8pm with the open jam session running till 9pm. Entrance is FREE before 9pm and only £3/£2 muddy members afterwards. Kick out time will be late.

For a quieter evening its the Glass Onion's games night. Free entrance and lots of stuff to do.

Friday

The city's premier acoustic night/open mic will be rolling along happily at the Glass Onion. Entrance is free as ever, vibes are friendly, music is top notch and music starts at 8pm.

If you fancy a mission further afield Point of Origin www.myspace.com/pointoforigin123 and Opaque www.bandopaque.com are playing at Sound, Leicester Square, London with support coming from The Meercats. I think that entrance to the gig is £5. The afterparty will be the Liquid Records party at the Colosseum in Vauxhall, London - with the best psy-trance, chill and electronica on offer in a wonderful vibe and environment. Advance booking of tickets (£15) from www.accessallareas.org is advised.

For a groovy dance party closer to home Diszkotek are back in Spirit & Soul with underground tekno to get your stomp on to! Doors are 10pm till 4am and entrance is £5.

Just down the road in St Neots (at The Wrestlers) is another chance to see the finalists from Unity's band of the year competition - The Brackets, Revenue and Free Will & the Bad Influences. If you missed it last week you now have another shot at it - and all three bands are very good indeed.

Saturday

Playskool are in Spirit & Soul on Saturday night with two rooms of the best underground electronic music - taking in d&b, psy-trance, deep house, breaks, progressive and hard trance. Entrance is a snip at £4 and door times are 10pm till 5am.

Sunday

Sunday nights are film night at the Glass Onion, with a diverse selection of stuff always available on the Onion's big screen. Entrance is free.

...and finally

Many thanks to all of you for your ongoing support of Muddy Promotions and the arts and music scenes in Peterborough and beyond. Here comes a great summer.

I've been scouting around, turning out files and searching in vain for some inspiration then what happens? I get a mailshot from a friend who says "Check out these guys". So I did, and I found the eponymous "Hairy prog rock Monsters" very retro, and sounding like early Led Zepellin. (You remember led Zepellin dontcha? They were some of the original Hairy prog rock monsters.) Anyway these monsters have got four tracks on their myspace which is two thirds of their latest CD. They describe themselves as being a mix of classical, rock, folk and blues. So that promises well. Actually if you like your folk rocky and your rock folky and your folk rock with a classical bluesy flavour you'll love these guys. So go check 'em out. What I didn't tell you their name? Well it isn't Hairy prog rock monsters. It's "Blind io" and you'll find them nestling all comfy and cosy right HERE

Oh God it doesn't rain but it pours. I'm sitting here at my desk minding my own business fielding mails from wannabee popstars and rappers, when Shaggy walks into the office loaded with doughnuts and a Skinny Latt-ay. "Hold the press!" he says spitting out half a doughnut, "I've got your 'myspace of the week'.""I've already done "myspace of the Week" it's those Hairy prog rock monsters.""Well we've got to have a double header myspace of the week then." That's unilateralism for you. No discussion, no debate.So the second entry for this weeks "Myspace of the week" is a new magazine that you can also read online which is really cool, because you can push a button and the pages turn. But that's not just why it's so cool. It's got great stuff in it and what's more you can contribute to it too. If you want. It's even got a forum. Yay! There's photos by Simon Colson; they're good. Photos by Mike Da Hat as well but not obviously mentioned. There's articles on Opaque Point of origin and .... hello so that's why he wanted it to be myspace of the week. An I thought he'd gone all altruistic on me. Gee we're learning some words today.Anyway the new magazine is called Art and Soul and it's got it's own myspace which is

Here at Unity we've been approached by a local pub who would like to put on an open mic night every week. Yeah Yeah yeah yet another one. How many musicians are there to go round all these open mic nights? But if you do it properly and get the right vibe going then it could well be very successful. So if you're interested in running your own open mic night in a pub in the north of PETERBOROUGH. Give Mike Da Hat a call on 07841 705049 he'll put you in contact with the relevant landlord.

Obviously having a PA would be a great advantage. Unless it's run unplugged.

Don't forget this Thursday at Unity "Lazy habits", "Groove Cartel" and "Jennifer James". You know all about Groove cartel Peterboroughs foremost groove funk band so no need to say anymore about them LazyHabits are Beats, Rhymes & Brass of the highest quality, based around a five piece core of drums, bass, brass & lyrics, with a extended collective comprising a variety of other artists & musicians.... You know you need to be there.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Capacity crowds, great atmosphere, brilliant bands what more could you ask for in a perfect nights entertainment? The tension was high as the first band hit the stage. Free Will and the Bad INfluences who stormed to victory last week in the last of the semi finals. Second band on stage were Revenue who went completely crazy before they even reached the stage geeing up the audience with screams of "We love Revenue", once on stage they blasted through their set much to the appreciation of the crowd.The Brackets, a relatively new band who first cut their teeth with a live audience on Unitys stage a couple of months ago. Since then they've improved and fine tuned their performance. A great favourite amongst the crowd.So the votes needed to be counted, it was a close run thing as seems to be the tradition during this competition. But during the counting and checking of the votes we were honoured to have the very talented Heather McVey do a set with her manically bizarre sidekick Tristan. The winner on the night was despite chants and screams for one band or another, The Brackets and here are some of you enjoying yourself. This week we had a Guest photographer (Clare) doing the papparazzi shots. That's Clare at the bottom right of the montage below.

Don't forget the Unity relaunch party on the 15th March featuring the Fabulous Lazy Habits ably supported by the coolest funk groove band in town Groove Cartel.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Ok we've got a little nepotism going on here I admit it. We're making one of our own myspace of the week. But to be fair it's well deserved, and a little late because the man in question didn't get up off his arse to produce a page, leaving it to little sister, Mel, to produce. Got enough clues yet?So why do you want to check out this myspace site? Well you get to listen to two great tracks of the new album from one of Peterboroughs best vocalists and talented guitarists, who at the moment is riding a camel in Morrocco. Come on surely you've guessed it by now. His new album is on sale at the Glass Onion for a mere £5 it's called "Horizons". Go get it it's brilliant. How many clues do you need?

Don't you just love that? He's not just Richard Hall or Rich he's THE Richard Hall and his songs prove it. And if you haven't already bought his album I strongly urge you to do so. It's in my car on repeat play.

Stop pressJust in case you didn't notice that we've changed the special guest for this weeks grand final of the competition, we now have the lovely Heather McVey doing the vote counting slot after the three bands have played. I gotta tell you ever since we found Heather , she's been a firm Unity favourite and has played on numerous occasions for us, each time winning more and more fans.

Just a few more days until the Final and word has come in that bands are going all out to bring in supporters and fans, Free will are bussing coach loads from cambridge, The Brackets have press ganged loads and Revenue are flying in a shed load on a private jet. So I guess it's going to be busy. We can't wait. Three of the areas finest bands playing on the same night on the same stage.In some respects we don't care who wins (because we have to be impartial) because we know it's going to be one of those very very special nights. I know a lot of the bands who have competed have made new friends and found mutual respect with everyone they've met.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

From the very first opening bars it was obvious that Free Will & The Bad Influences meant business. Solid bluesy rock songs with on occasion, wailing harmonica accompaniment. You could see jaws dropping as people mouthed the words "wow" and "awesome". It can't be bettered........well you'd say that until the next band stalked onto the stage, The Beautiful Sleazy, early stones with that confident Mick Jagger strut going on. Fantastic. thirty minutes of brilliance. What would you expect from bands that got this far in the competition. You wouldn't expect anything less. So who do you choose as the best band to go on into the final, no one yet because next up.......we have Final Epitaph. Now I suppose it's common knowledge through my comments over the years that I am not exactly the biggest fan of death metal there is and if there's a choice between having root canal surgery without anasthetic or listening to yet another death metal combo I'd be off to the dentists in a flash. But I'm going to make an exception to this. Final Epitaph. These guys are awesomely good. They really know how to have a good time. You can't just dismiss these guys on a whim because they happen to play a genra of music you don't particularly subscribe to because these dudes are genuinely talented. Not only that they know how to party. They were not restricted by petty boundaries like the stage area, like free style ice skaters they used every available space to their advantage, coming out into the audience and rocking.But of course you were there weren't you. You saw all this excitement and while you were racking your brains trying to decide who to vote for, and it was, yet again a close call, we had the very wonderful Jack Brown without his Dead Mans Orchestra to do a set for you...and the winner was....hushed silence for dramatic pause....Free Will and the Bad Influences. Who go into next weeks grand final.

So the official line for the grand final on March 8th is:The BracketsRevenueFree Will & The Bad Influences

as if that isn't enough to make you pee your pants in excitement we have as our special guest to entertain you during the counting of the votes, the one, the only, the very lovely, Heather McVey. A great vocal talent whose voice will make you melt. I thank you.